Tuesday, December 30, 2014

New porcelain and glaze

Last night I opened up the glaze kiln that I fired off on Sunday. It was pretty much full of tests, so I was nervous to say the least. There was a wack of mugs in the new re formulated polar ice body. I had also tested the new Plainsman stoneware clear base glaze. I made a 1000g batch of the clear using 4% Mason Turquoise stain and then a 1500g batch of just straight clear. After all these years of putting it off, I finally got around to mixing up some of Stephen Hill's cone 6 Strontium Crystal Magic (cool version). I sprayed it on all of the mugs and dipped it on most of the rest of everything else. It is more of an enhancer than a good glaze by itself, so I sprayed and dipped a variety of our studio glazes over top of it. I knew that it would make things runny, but wondered just how runny, as the ~5% lithium carb would act to make things a bit matte. I also sprayed the plainsman clear on about 75 or so Christmas tree decorations/gift tags that I made out of the non plastic polar ice version. I am thinking of next year, as I realize that they are a bit late for 2014. Everything came out great. I think a mug kissed the spout of a teapot, so a little grinding and re firing will be required, but other than that, it was all more than I could hope for. I had visions of lakes of glaze coating my brand new kiln shelf, but no, it was all perfect. This is a picture of one of the mugs glazed in the Plainsman clear base on the inside and the bottom 1/3rd on the outside with the Crystal Magic sprayed on the top half and then a blue hare's fur glaze applied on the top 2/3rds. The second image is just a close up of the handle showing how much it can indeed run. Although you cant tell in these images, this porcelain is still very translucent, even with the darker glaze on the outside.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Mugs all trimmed and handled

Yikes, it was over a week ago that I was to have had these mugs trimmed. I did get them done last Tuesday, I just neglected to tie up the loose ends of the last post. Anyway, I did get the handles on, as you can see. I also trimmed all the other pots that I threw out of the 2 boxes of Polar Ice porcelain that I managed to get my hands on. Amazingly, Ceramics Canada is all sold out of that clay now. No more until the new year I guess. No biggy, I should probably get a handle on the glazing of this body before I commit more time and money to it. In addition to the pots I have posted from this new clay, I got a couple of teapots out of it, as well as a few smaller serving bowls. I am finding that it requires an insane amount of trimming and I have a full bag of trimmings already that I will hopefully be able to make useable again. The few extra days off from my real job(s) that the holidays create will be spent in the studio loading bisque kilns, mixing test glazes, glazing, loading glaze kilns and crossing fingers. I will try to get into the studio on the 24th, but there are people in my life that don't seem to share the same enthusiasm I have for clay and will probably complain. I won't go on the 25th, I think that would be pushing it a bit, but boxing day is a given, as is the weekend. I will have a whole 4.5 uninterrupted days over the New Year as well. I never do anything on New Years Eve that would require any recovery from the next day, so I am hoping for a lot of productivity. I never make New Year's resolutions, but I think I might cave just this once. I am going to resolve to enter a large craft show next year. I am in no position to think spring, but I should be able to pump enough clay through my hands to be able to have enough stock for a Christmas show. I know, I know, but If I don't start thinking about it now, it will never happen. The show I think I should enter makes their entry info and forms available in February and I think the deadline is in April. Between now and then I need to come up with a booth design, have enough representative ware to fill that booth to take photos of so they can assess the booth, as well as have pictures of individual pieces for the jury process. If all goes well and I get accepted, I will be a very busy beaver over the next 11 months. I think I have the booth mostly nailed down. A friend and fellow potter has a display system that is very portable and she has offered it to me for the sale. I also have some ideas for some wooden crates. My idea is to paint them in milk paint and distress them. The colours will be very pale and muted so as not to distract from the pottery, but they will be stackable which will allow me to create a nice table top display without too much hassle as well as act as carrying totes. So that's it for now, I will be up to my elbows in clay for the next couple of weeks. I will have one glass of nog (maybe, i really don't like that stuff), but other than that, I will be busy busy busy. I have a pile of podcasts downloaded that I need to catch up on/start and the studio is the perfect place to do that. There is also the added bonus of the studio actually being closed on the 26th and the 1st, but I have a key, so it should be JUST ME in there with nobody to else to take up table space. There might be one or 2 other key holders in there, but they don't really count, as they are probably just looking for some peace and quiet too. If I don't post before then, have a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful New Year and we'll see you in 2015. I will probably be putting pics up on Instagram (see link above), but mostly just throwing, glazing and firing. Cheers!

Monday, December 15, 2014

New Translucent Porcelain

Plainsman Clay's new translucent cone 6 porcelain has finally arrived. I picked up a couple of boxes on Saturday and tested it out that afternoon. The previous batch that they had made was not plastic enough and was really only suitable for hand building. It was the body I used to create that little village diorama. Plainsman revisited the formula and doubled the amount of v-gum and now it throws really well. You can get amazing height and it holds its shape really well and doesn't sit back down on the wheel. I probably pushed it a bit by trimming the pots I made on Sunday, but so far so good. These pictures are some examples of what I was able to create with it. The bottle was 2.5 kg, the mugs were 600g each and the large bowl is a whopping 10lbs. It stays on centre without too much effort, but it is really sensitive to touch, so the pressure you apply when shaping should be gentle and done with care. I also managed to throw another 8 large mugs yesterday and then 8 more 400g mugs. I will begin the trimming and handling on Tuesday.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Step away

I know, I know, the scale of that bridge is a little off, but then everything about this is a bit off in terms of scale. I mean, those doors are giant in comparison to the houses, but I am not removing it. I am stepping away from the diorama. Every time I touch it, I end up spackling and patching, so this is it, all done. Now it dries and awaits the kiln.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Almost done

This little "village" started on a whim and was inspired by these:
In turn, these pots with the houses were inspired by Dr. Seuss and his Who's. So I guess this is my interpretation of Whoville. The only thing left to do, if I can engineer it of course, is to build a little bridge and stick it in the middle so that it joins both sides of the river valley. This whole piece was created out of Plainsman Clay's new cone 6 translucent porcelain body called Polar Ice. As it is going to have a high degree of translucency, I bored holes under each house so that I can insert some little electric tea lights to illuminate them from within. my fingers are crossed that this doesn't just crack all over in the bisque, or that the trees don't topple over in the glaze...

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Diorama detail carving begins

I have begun to carve in the details on the houses and trees for the little landscape I am building. These 2 pictures show the front and back side of one of the "Who Houses" as well as one of the trees. My plan for this is to build a little bridge that joins both sides over the ravine or river that runs through the middle of the assemblage. I have also made some pillowy clouds that will hang from high temp wire that will be inserted into the tops of either the trees or houses, but this plan is still in my head, translating that into real life might be a challenge.
Front door                                               Back door


The final piece, but again this is still in my head, will have little lights pushed up inside the houses to illuminate from within.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Condo Status and Other More Interesting Stuff


Firstly, for all of you out there that are wondering if I will be home for Christmas, the answer is NO. The engineer report regarding the source / solution to the water that mysteriously showed up in my unit on October 17th just came in and they don't have a clue where it came from. We have theories, but nothing concrete. The next step is to recreate the water testing that occured several days prior to the water appearing in my unit. The plumber was in running water in the 3 units above me to find out why there were drastic temperature changes. It is my understanding that they had all taps open and running, toilets were being flushed etc. In the end, they found out why the temp was changing, but it is my belief, but then again I'm not a plumber so what do I know, that this led to the water leaking into my unit on the main floor. This may or may not reveal a cause, but the solution to prevent any future water issues in my unit is to dig a trench in my floor that leads to the sump pump in the mechanical room, probably several feet down, lay down a perforated drain (aka weeping tile), cover with gravel and then patch the floor and then fix my unit. This should take any excess water that collects and divert it to the sump. When? How much $$? Who knows. I just know that it wont be complete before the end of the year, so my guess is that it will take until at least February. But again, just a guess.

In other non stressful areas of my life, seeing as how I don't have a home to call my own that I can actually go to every day, I have been putting my mental energy into ruminating about the possibility of entering a large craft show for next year's Christmas shopping season. I thought about a spring show, but the deadlines are already coming up for those. I know this will be a lot of work, but I won't know if this is a good fit for me unless I at least give it a shot. So, with that in mind, I am getting a jump on it before the registration deadlines come and go. My biggest concern is that I don't have a real display for my work, I have only ever really done the Fairview pottery show and it is such a crazy show that we could probably get away with just putting it all on the floor in the middle of the room and let the customers dig through it like a discount bin in a big department store (we never would, but you get the picture). So, the hunt is on for an inexpensive and portable display solution and I think I may have found it. I located some basic pine boxes made from 1x2s with solid end panels with routered out handles. As they are unfinished, I need to find a way to fancy them up so they look presentable. Milk paint was my first thought. The big hardware stores don't carry that stuff though. There are some specialty wood working and ECO stores in town that do, but I don't want to buy the quantity they sell it in. I just found a Canadian manufacturer that sells test size amounts that would in fact cover a couple of these boxes, so with the thought that I would be getting at least 6 pine boxes (I picked up 2 last night) I bought 6 different colours in the test quantity and they should arrive in about 5 days. I will use bees wax to help distress and then use a couple of colours on each box to give a weathered / antique appearance. I will then use the crates to create a shelving system of sorts by just stacking them like bricks in various combinations of height and spacing. Now I just need to make, make, make and hope I get accepted into one of these shows so I don't get stuck with too much inventory.
Now for the pictures, I always like a post with pictures. These are some of the things I have been working on over the last week.
This little diorama is a riff on the black and white sgraffito pots with the houses and trees. I plan to incise some detail into this super translucent porcelain in the hopes that I can figure out a way to illuminate the houses from inside (small battery operated tea lights maybe?) I also might add a little bridge and it needs some bushes etc...
I am also playing around with some bottles that would appeal to the scotch, bourbon, whiskey connoisseur, again thinking about possible show stock for next year. Good grief, we have not even had Christmas this year and I am already looking forward 12 months.

Monday, November 24, 2014

Weekend

The Fairview pottery sale went reasonably well on Saturday. We had a smaller number of participants (10) this year, so the fact that we seem to be attracting fewer customers every year did not hurt us too bad on an individual basis. I can't really put a finger on any one factor that is causing this "depression" of sorts, but I can think of a few things that may be dragging our numbers down. It could be anything from the location and an over saturation of that community with pottery, or it could be that people don't have an appreciation of hand made pottery, or even that there are just too many craft shows all happening at once. It never seems to fail that we tend to have our sale the same weekend as the Telus Art Market, or the Spruce Meadows Show, or the Bragg Creek market, etc etc. We DO have a dedicated core list of followers, but many are moving away, or just don't need/want any more pots. That just seems strange to me, you can't have too many pots in my humble opinion. After the sale I fell into the typical post sale coma. but woke up refreshed on Sunday and was back at it in the studio. I only took this one picture of my efforts, but there is another one of these bowls with a much different design in the works too, it just isn't finished yet. These large bowls (8lb wet) take a while to carve as they get really fragile when all that wet Terra Sig is applied. Rims can just "pop" and then they crumble. So these are carved for the most part on the banding wheel. I only pick them up once they return to a slightly less fragile bone dry state. These photos show a 360 view of the bowl I completed, although I am contemplating changing up the stripes on the top and bottom. Perhaps widening the white lines, or not, we'll see how I feel about that tomorrow. As for what those shapes are supposed to be, I'm not sure about that either. I have a degree in biology, so to me, they look a bit like unicellular organisms, but they could also be seed pods or something like that, or just plain abstract. You choose.

Friday, October 31, 2014

Fairview Studios Christmas 2014 Pottery Sale

The Fairview Pottery Sale is swiftly approaching, here are the details...

I'm In London (Ontario)

Well, I am not actually in London, Ontario, but my mugs are...
I sent these off on Tuesday this week and they just arrived this morning. All in one piece too. They are at the Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery for "The Great Mug Spectacular" that runs from December 11th to the 31st. They put out an open invitation to all Canadian potters from coast to coast to send them 24 mugs each, so I did.
I have only been to this gallery once, but man, was I glad I did. They have a huge collection of some of the best in Canadian ceramic art. I managed to pick up a little wood fired tea bowl that managed to survive the flood last year, so I have something to remember my visit by.  I hope the show goes well and that all my mugs sell. It would be depressing to have to pay for return shipping...


Monday, October 20, 2014

New pots

I have been busily scratching away on some new bowls and tall cups. The Fairview Pottery Sale is looming (Nov 22nd) and I really need to get a move on, so any spare time I can find to get in the studio will be taken full advantage of.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Mystery water - AKA the ongoing saga of my condo restoration

As you have all probably read here before, I was flooded last June and my condo is still under construction. However, there has been a development that will further delay the completion. I went to my site meeting on Tuesday this week and guess what I saw. Water bubbling up between the hardwood floor boards when I stepped on them. They have apparently ripped up a lot of floor and some wall in the kitchen. This is a picture of the first day of exploration. They can't find the source....where does that leave me? not sure, I am in limbo right now...it is becoming rather comical, in the hysterical I'm going crazy kind of way.

Monday, October 6, 2014

I feel like a LIAR


My last post indicated that I would be moving back into my condo that was destroyed by the flood of 2013 last June.
Well, I guess I lied. In fact, I was lied to, which is worse. The really horrible part is that the condo is so close to being done. The even more horrible part is that the contractor pretty much ruined the hardwood floor and it now appears that there are too many damaged boards and the whole floor will probably need to be ripped out and a new one installed. I met with the flooring trade and the contractor to inspect the floor and he pretty much said it is no good. The floor needs a really good cleaning so that they can see the floor and not all the dust and construction grime to get a better idea of the extent of the damage, but I'm convinced it will need to be ripped out and replaced.
This means I don't really know when I will be moving home. If I owned the construction company, I would put as many people as possible on to this to get it done. By not doing so, only increases the chances that the owners and the condo corporation will get litigious. In my estimation, it should not take them more than a day to rip out the damaged floor and then another day, maybe 2, to install the new one. But that would be if I was running the crew. It took them all weekend for a painter to run through and do the remaining touch ups that were to be done, so I can tell that getting this floor redone is going to be like pulling teeth. They did install the closet shelves, because that was apparently soooo important, but they did not clean the floor as far as I can see.
It should be a fairly interesting meeting tomorrow morning. I am curious to hear what convoluted story they will have to tell.
My sister and brother in law are going through a similar hassle. Their condo is getting stucco and new windows for all units. They are also expecting a baby any day now. The new windows for their master bedroom are apparently going to be installed pretty much around the time she has the baby so they will not be able to stay there until they are done, but with the lack of speed on the trades side, who knows when that will happen. They were going to spend a day or 2 at my place, but with that up in the air, my guess is they will be at my parents house.

On the pottery front, the Fairview Pottery Sale will be held at the Canyon Meadows Community Centre on Saturday, November 22nd this year, so if you are in the area and you are looking for unique, hand made gifts, this would be an excellent event to check out.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

I might be jinxing this by posting about it, but what the heck

I have been told that my condo will be done and ready for me to walk through with the contractor on FRIDAY. This Friday, not some random Friday in a month or 2 or next year. If everything goes well, I can start moving this weekend. To say that I am ready to move is an understatement. I will get to live in the condo I have been paying mortgage payments and condo fees on for the last year, 3 months and 5 days.

This whole thing has been stressful to say the least, but I would not have gotten through it without the support of my family. I was able to stay with my parent's rent free during this time, so that took a huge load off of my shoulders. My friends and even people I don't even know were super helpful and supportive and helpful during this time from the mucking out of my apartment and all the other units in my building to just listening to me moan about the delays and issues with the rebuild.

Once I can get my head wrapped around my new home and get everything just the way I want it, there WILL be a PARTY. 

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Catching up on the pottery

Pottery has been taking a bit of a back seat on this blog for a while, what with the condo rebuild and getting to possibly, maybe getting to move in sometime soon. But I have been making pots. Here are a few pictures of what I have been up to. These are just a few shots of the different patterns I have been scratching away on in the form of mugs and bowls

Because no post would be truly complete without a little update on Lucy the flying dog, here she is leaping across the deck just after a freak late summer snow fall...

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

So close - like 48 hours close

So this is where the condo stands. A few minor fixes here and there, a few last little things to finish, but for the most part, it is done! I need confirmation on occupancy and when I will be allowed to move in, but I have been told that it would not be unreasonable to expect it to be all complete in 48 hours
This is the living room with the furniture that arrived last Friday.

This is the view into the master bedroom from the living room with move of the furniture that arrived on Friday.
 
This is the kitchen with all the tile up, the last bit of paint. An electrical cover needs to be installed, but other than that, done!
 
And finally the bathroom sink and toilet...
 

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Getting there

There seems to have been more condo related stuff on this pottery blog than actual pottery. Well, this will soon come to an end. Apparently my condo will be finished on Friday this week (September 5th). I have arranged for all of my furniture to arrive that day as well as the guys to come and stack and hook up my washer and dryer. I have a friend helping me move one piece of furniture from my Sister's house to mine as she will have no room for it once the baby arrives and I have a spare room that needs some furniture. I took this picture on Tuesday morning. There was still a lot of stuff to get done, but they have made progress. I still need a microwave hood fan installed, the closet organizers need to go in. There is still some work to do on the radiant baseboards as well as window coverings, plumbing fixtures, bathroom sink/toilet and some paint touch ups and a little bit of tile in the kitchen...then they need to flip the switch and get power to the units.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

So how do you sign your pots?

One of my students bought a plate from me last week. He said he really liked it, but why do I not sign my pots? I said that I do sign my pots, but I choose to use a chop mark as opposed to scrawling my really long signature all over the bottom of a piece. I usually put the mark on the bottom or near the bottom, sometimes I put it beside the bottom of handle attachment points, and sometimes I put it in a more visible spot, as with the two pictures below. I thought he was done with the topic, but this week he came back and said that the reason he, and possibly other students, buy my work is because I made it and in 10 years, he may not remember who the heck make that plate if all he had to go on was some little chop mark. I used to sign my work with a dull pencil, but I wanted something easier and smaller I explained and so I made myself this little stamp. It is unique to me, no other potter that I know of signs with a similar mark. I have never really had an issue with this method, most of the people that buy my work are unknown to me and they are not buying it because I made it (I'm not that famous yet) but because they like the piece. And I guess that is what it should be all about. It should be about the pot, not the potter so much.


So how do you sign your pots? with a flourish? a chop? or nothing at all?

Monday, August 18, 2014

The weekend was muggy (pardon the pun)

I was finally able to pick up a couple boxes of Bmix on Saturday. It has been a while since it has been in stock and I have had to resort to using clay I don't really like to throw and to reclaim all my scraps. I threw the last of my reclaim on Friday night and it was a bit wet, but I wedged it really well and went for a really big bowl. The problems started pretty much right away. I couldn't centre it for love 'nor money. I got it to a reasonably centered state, opened it up, and found a large sponge. It was really full of clay and I never saw it during wedging. I picked it out and continued to throw but there were all kinds of spongy bits still in there. The bowl survived, but it was a bit of a challenge. Saturday I opened up the new non-spongy bmix and threw these mugs. I threw another large bowl but managed to tip it onto the floor on Sunday, overall not a great weekend for productivity.

Friday, August 15, 2014

Relief

If you are a potter and you do not get regular massages, I would highly recommend it. It has been a while (3 months) since my last massage, so I took advantage of a free evening last night and had a 1.5 hour massage. I always go for the deep tissue, theraputic massage. Making pottery puts a lot of stress on your body, what with the bizarre contortions we put ourselves into with odd sitting postures, especially if you throw on the wheel sitting down. If you use a kick wheel, I am sure that adds another level of stress on your body too. We stand for long periods, we sit for long periods, we lift heavy kiln shelves in and out of tight spaces, the list of things we do to ourselves in the name of our art are endless. Then there are the sales, lifting boxes, setting up booths, the mad scramble to pack up etc.
I used to go to a spa for my massages as there was one therapist there that had the best hands. She knew just where all the aches and pains were, even when I didn't. After she quit working there, I was left high and dry without a good therapist. So, the search was on the find a suitable replacement. I am now a member at a local massage place, you pay a monthly fee that entitles you to one 1hour massage a month and you would pay for any additional massages on top of that as needed. The good thing with this is that if you can't make the time one month, it rolls over to the next month. There are a lot of therapists there and you can choose a different one each time or stick to just one if you think they are the right fit for you.
Before I went in last night, I could barely turn my head, shoulder checking was very painful, laying down was even more so. Sleep was not easy to come by and headaches were becoming more common. When I left last night, I was sore, but today I am a million times better. I slept really well, I can turn my head without the jabbing pains.
So I'll say it again, if you are a potter, you should get regular massages.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Condo still looks the same

They say I will be in by next Friday. Things are a bit jumbled in there, what with all the appliances sitting all over the place, but I have some confidence that I will be able to start moving stuff in over the weekend and cleaning it up. I know the contractor claims that they do a final clean, but I doubt their standards are compatible with mine. I'm no neat freak, but I am sure all they will do is vacuum up the sawdust and wipe down the obvious stuff.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Moving soon????

I have probably jinxed it by blogging about it, but I should be moving on the 26th of August. My condo will be ready (according to the new schedule) on August 22nd, but my schedule did not match up with that. So the 26th it is. This whole process will have taken exactly 1 year and 2 months, to the day. They could have built an entire new building in that time. It's been a crazy, stomach churning, nail biting, emotional roller coaster of a ride that I will be glad to finally be able to get off, just as soon as the carny comes back from his smoke/toke break...

Monday, August 11, 2014

New porcelain

I was not in the studio much over the weekend. I had a wedding to attend and was staying at the bride's house overnight on Friday to help set up her back yard on Saturday before the wedding. So Sunday was my only day to get muddy. I picked up a box of the new Polar Ice that is still the first formulation that does not throw well. (the new and improved batch will be coming soon). Regardless, I was able to throw a few bowls of a reasonable size. The biggest is shown above and measures about 14.5 inches in diameter. It got a bit wonky when I accidentally stopped the wheel just a little too fast and it was jerked out of round. I managed to "correct" it so that at least visually, it does not appear to bad. The others were of varying sizes ad I attempted to trim a couple after they had stiffened up a bit. This clay is deceiving in that when you think it is dry, it is NOT. I will be letting the remainder dry very slowly and will try not to get too impatient and attempt any more trimming until they are just right. I was supposed to move back into my condo this week, but that did not happen. They were installing carpet in the common hallways and stairs and that took up 3 whole days. The kitchens for all 4 units are supposed to be going in this week starting today, so I really really hope that next week will be the week. My fingers are crossed, but I'm not holding my breath.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Translucent cone 6 porcelain

I have been mucking about with a new porcelain body. Plainsman Clays in Medicine Hat has been working on a cone 6 translucent body that would be comparable to Laguna Frost. They tested and came up with a body that appeared to throw well, but when they scaled it up to a full batch, the throwing properties were lost in translation. So they are back to the drawing board to tweak it to make it more throwable. That being said, I got my hands on half a box and did throw it. Whipped cream or pudding comes to mind when trying to describe it's consistancy. It did not stand up well, nor did it trim easily. I did however manage to get a few pieces made, mostly mugs. Here are a couple of examples of what came out of the kiln. I love the way it feels. Silky, smooth, fat etc etc etc. I like the finished result enough that I would try to fight another box of this into submission, and will definitely give their next revised batch a shot too.
This pic is of the inside of the little cup. I carved the bottom to see how that would show, and it does, quite well.
 
The little cup with the sgrafitto deco is not very thin, in fact the carving was not easy as the body is quite hard once it becomes bone dry. I really just wanted to know how it would take the OM4 terra sig and it feels really good, no fit issues that I can see.

Friday, July 18, 2014

I sound like a broken record....but I have a new move in date

We told our contractors on Tuesday that we were not happy and were considering the possibilities of firing everyone and starting from scratch. This would not be an ideal solution, but it seems to have made them step it up and move into a higher gear. They have fired some trades and brought some new ones on to the job. They are going to rip out some of the kitchens in other units, mine is apparently OK, but will have a corner cabinet installed where the last installer thought butting 2 boxes up to each other was acceptable (not). They will proceed with other work while the kitchens are being redone. I will need to re select cabinet door fronts as well as hardware. I find it funny that nobody ever asked me about hardware before. I asked, but never got a response. Anyway, they say that my unit will be done with a move in date of August 9th. The other 3 units will require more extensive work to remove the shoddy work. They will apparently be in by August 25th. All work should be complete by Sept. 1st.

My fingers are crossed, I can only hope that this timeline sticks. I don't see how they can't do it, as they are only working on finishing stuff, all the hard stuff has already been dealt with, like the mechanical, plumbing and floor leveling etc.



Thursday, July 17, 2014

Customer Service is Dead

I got an automated call last night letting me know that my fridge and stove were going to be delivered today between 8 and 11am. I sent out an email to my office letting everyone know that I was going to be late as I was getting my appliances, because that is the courteous thing to do. Well, I sat there, in front of my condo (the one that is still not finished) for 2.5 hours. I called the store (sounds like The Crick) to check on the status of the delivery, but they couldn't contact the driver. I waited some more, I called back, they told me the truck had technical difficulties and had to go back to the warehouse. I left to go back to work. I get to work and not 5 minutes later the driver called to say they were 5 minutes away. I told them, I was 20 minutes away. They told me they couldn't wait. I said "So I waited 3 hours for you, but you can't wait 20 minutes? That is really inconvenient". Driver said they had to go back because they couldn't fit everything on the truck. and that I will have to reschedule the delivery. Wouldn't it have been better to call the customer to let them know that they were going to be late? I was so hungry, I hadn't had any coffee. All I had were a few chocolate mint things that I threw in my purse yesterday. Talk about healthy. So unimpressed. They fall all over you to take your money when you are shopping, but dropped the ball when it came to delivering the goods. When I called to reschedule, it took me 4 tries to get them to answer the phone, and I still have to call back tomorrow to get the delivery times.
I did get a human phone call while I was waiting from Home Depot. They were calling to let me know that my washer and dryer were unfortunately still in transit from the manufacturer. They called, it was a human being, and they will call again to confirm a delivery date once they have them in their warehouse. We shall see how these guys do when it comes to delivery time.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Scritch scritch scritch

I have been scritching and scratching pretty much on anything I can get my hands on these days. So much so that all of my small wire sgrafitto tools have been worn right through. These are some more mugs and yunomis that I have been working on...
In addition to the urn I posted earlier with the "boy and his dog" theme, I was also asked to make a less fat, more slender urn with blue butterflies. The recipient did not want to spend eternity in a "fat" jar :) So, here it is...
In condo news, we threatened the contractors with firing and man, that seems to have lit a fire. There has been work, they are firing some trades and getting new ones to fix the incorrect stuff and move it along faster. We were told that this is a 3 week project now. Once they give us a revised and updated schedule and plan, we will know more. So maybe August 1st? I really have no idea, I can only guess. So far, all of my guesses have been wrong though....